We arrived at our destination, drove down the tree lined drive leading to Horwood House, it was so pretty and everything I had imagined.

Arriving at the front of Horwood House, a rather lovely amor house which is now a conference hotel which has been artfully tucked behind the original house. We checked into our rooms and were shown the Columbus room which was to be our classroom for the next couple of days.

It took Teresa and I almost all of Saturday (I was in jet lag mode) to set up the room and here we are waiting to greet the guests for the workshop :)

Part of getting the room ready included packing the kits and special treats that I had shipped from home into the 'goodie' bags. I couldn't resist putting these sweet koalas onto the top of each bag.

The white hearts on the front of the bags I had painted at home one evening in between cooking dinner and I really like how they looked! The water bottles on everyone tables were such a fabulous shape I couldn't resit showing them to you.

I have had special Lanyards printed, they turned out so nicely thanks to Emma who created the graphics and organised getting them printed.We all enjoyed wearing them.

I'm sorry there are no sound effects for you but as the participants opened their goodie bags, there were a lot of ooh's and ahh's! We decided it was a bit like being a child and opening your Christmas stocking!

Many of us had fun making a needle case for the 'swap', we all started off with the same stitchery design and then how we made the needlecase was up to us. Here are just some of them, as you can see they were all wonderful.

Here I am discussing the how's, why's and benefits of using the Apliquick tools.

There was lots of lovely 'show and tell' which I was so busy enjoying looking at that I mostly forgot to take photos :(

Here Valerie and Sarah are showing their very nice Anderson's Farm blocks. The quilt in the background is called 'Garden Maze'.

The sweet bunny journal from my book 'Stitch It For Spring' has been made by Maureen using fabrics from my 'Hollyhock Cottage' collection. The hill the tree is on is made using tiny 1/4" hexagons and the bunny button is one of my hand pained ones. The quilt in the background in called 'Love Letter's'

There was show and tell of the nail art variety!

We did some nice displays around the classroom, here you can see 'Stitched By Me' which has been kindly loaned to me by Nicola Forman while I ma here in the UK, Nicola made this quilt from one of my kits. Also is 'Green Thumb' my new stitchery block of the month (the kits have just been cut and packed in time for my trip)

I loved this door that I found in the garden of the main house.

Thank you to everyone who joined me for this event, I had a wonderful time and I hope you did too.

With my favourite brew on hand I am sat in the window seat soaking up the winter sunshine writing to you about my Splendid Sampler journey.

I have been lucky enough to have known both Jane and Pat (the co-creators of this brilliant event) for several years, we always catch up at quilt market. Pat as you know lives in the US and jane as luck would have it lives about an hour down the road from me!

I love that we are celebrating reaching the 50th block - half way - does it seem possible that we have been on this wonderful journey together for 6 months??

When I first saw and heard the blocks name it made me think of a fun nursery rhyme that I am sure my Mum sang to me and that I sang to my children. The lyrics sum up where we all are in the progress of our Splendid Sampler blocks!

Oh, The grand old Duke of York (aka Pat and Jane),He had ten thousand men (this is us, the Splenderettes);He marched them up to the top of the hill,And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,And when they were down, they were down,And when they were only half-way up (where we are now),They were neither up nor down.

Like many of you I started out with good intentions and sped ahead with my blocks, I find the foundation pieced blocks challenging as my brain does not seem to work upside down....I do of course love the appliquéd and embroidered blocks.

I started to plan what might look nice as sashing....I liked this cream tonal print ....

I liked this soft blue look.....

and then I really liked this stronger blue sashing with light corner posts, so this the print that I will be joining my Splendid Sampler together with.

I mentioned before that Jane (@quiltjane) lives close to me and so it was with great excitement that we held our first 'Splenderette Gathering' in the store....we had ladies from far and wide join us to show their blocks and to tell their stories.

I have a sweet little bundle of my new fabric line Festive Fun to give away - please leave me a note and tell me how many Splendid Sampler blocks you have made so far?

Here I am with some of the other Splendid Sampler block designers at market, we all looked very serious in this picture but I can promise you two moments later we were playing up!

There are a few Splendid Sampler designers who are doing special blog posts this week, telling their stories, giving some hints and tips and that may have giveaways.